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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25740538">Glass Houses</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/WereAllDeadInDevilTown/pseuds/WereAllDeadInDevilTown'>WereAllDeadInDevilTown</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Descendants (Disney Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Everyone Is Gay, Evie &amp; Jay &amp; Mal &amp; Carlos de Vil as Found Family, F/F, Found Family, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Isle of the Lost (Disney) is a Terrible Place, Jay and Mal have the cutest friendship ever, Non-Graphic Violence, Origin Story, Romantic Soulmates, Scars, Soulmates, evie has her pet bird from the book, he ships mal x evie, justice for Othello the bird, this came to me in a dream no lie, this is over the span of a couple years, wlw</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-20 08:27:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,444</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25740538</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/WereAllDeadInDevilTown/pseuds/WereAllDeadInDevilTown</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>If soulmates are real, Mal is pretty sure her’s must despise her.<br/>In actuality, Evie just wished Mal would be a little more careful. x </p><p>(Angsty Soulmate AU in which any scar which would appear on one individual’s body will instead appear on their soulmate’s body and vice versa.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Evie/Mal (Disney)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>225</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Glass Houses</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>TRIGGER WARNING for blood, injuries, mild violence, and referenced child abuse. </p><p>Also NOTE: lines indicate a passage of time.</p><p>Enjoy! 💗</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Mal dragged her feet as she walked, scuffing her heavy boots through the trodden dirt path and kicking up mud as she did so. The mud-splattered little speckled spots on the bottoms of her cuffed jeans, but they were black so you couldn’t really tell. Plus, they were already stained to hell and back like most of her clothes so it wasn’t like she really cared much anyway. The scummy looking, empty metal pail she was holding in her left hand bumped against her side obnoxiously as she walked- the handle making a periodic, wretched scraping sound from rust around its hinges. Mal ignored the sound to the best of her abilities and kept her eyes to the ground as she made her way towards the seashore, not bothering to look up even as she entered the bustling town center. She knew where she was going by heart and besides, the people of the Isle knew better than to bump into </span>
  <em>
    <span>Maleficent’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> daughter of all people. The crowd of villains practically parted down the middle as she stomped around the corner of a stall, murmuring things that the purple-clad eleven-year-old didn’t care enough about to stop to listen to. The sooner she made it to the coast and found the shards of glass her mother requested from her, the sooner she could go meet up with Jay and instead do whatever she wanted. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>This punishment of “glass-hunting”, as Mal had so lovingly defined the activity a year or so ago, wasn’t new, though she still thought it odd. Mal didn’t know what her mother </span>
  <em>
    <span>did </span>
  </em>
  <span>with the glass pieces she made her daughter go out and collect at seemingly random times. At first, she thought maybe it was just a tactic to get her out of the house and kept busy, that was something Maleficent sometimes did when she couldn’t stand to be near her own spawn. But her mother was too consistent with the order for that to be it, Mal decided. The glass shards that seemed worthless to most everyone else on the Isle must have been worth </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span> to her mother, somehow, but Mal knew better than to ever ask about it. Mal was an obedient kid, when she was on her mother’s good side Maleficent would sometimes appropriately refer to her as her “little soldier”. So the task remained shrouded in mystery, which made it a little less boring, at least. Normally it was a task Mal didn’t mind too much, it wasn’t like she looked </span>
  <em>
    <span>forward </span>
  </em>
  <span>to it, but, besides the occasional cut on her finger, it was a harmless enough activity. There were far worse things Mal could spend an afternoon on the Isle doing outside of mindlessly digging around in the mud like a little coal miner, after all. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was pretty sure the island was running out of stupid glass shards though because she’d been shambling along every damn dirt path this side of the island since sunrise with no luck whatsoever. As a last-ditch effort, Mal decided to head to the seashore near Goblin Wharf. Was this a smart idea? Yes and no. Yes because she knew there would be </span>
  <em>
    <span>loads</span>
  </em>
  <span> of glass washed up on the grimy, sandy banks lining the shark-infested water that surrounded the Isle. But no because it wasn’t her mother’s territory, it was Ursula’s, and if she wasn’t careful she’d get her ass handed to her by that sea witch’s shrimpy kid and all her dim-witted pirate friends. Especially since she was going in alone. Good thing Mal was </span>
  <em>
    <span>always</span>
  </em>
  <span> careful. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once she made it past the last of the stupid merchant booths in town and turned down the northernmost alleyway the smell of salt and fish hit her nose and she knew she was outside of Maleficent’s bounds. Mal quieted the squeaking metal bucket at her side by letting go of the handle and instead relenting to hold the side of it. She stopped watching the ground in hopes of finding any glass so she could instead watch her surroundings, listening carefully for the sound of any footsteps on cobblestone as she hid in midday shadows and slank down side roads. Mal made it to the thick of Ursula’s territory with relative ease, only getting scared once near The Chip Shoppe, but she pressed her back firmly against the side of the cold brick building and held her breath to avoid detection as two of Hook’s cabin boys stalked by a little too close for comfort. Once they were gone it was a clear break towards the shore and Mal ran there with little to no trouble, ducking for cover beneath the creaky wooden docks which hid her from view. Lucky for her it was low tide, or so she guessed, judging by the fact that several times she’d come here the waves were high enough that they’d lap angrily at even the tops of the docks- and here she was standing on exposed sandy shores beneath them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wasting no time to further ponder how the Isle tides worked, especially considering she only had a limited amount of time to search for potentially a number of reasons now, Mal knelt down and began digging through the mushy wet sand with her hands. Outwardly she grimaced, hating the feeling of soggy grains beneath her already dirty fingernails and the way her nose was full of fishy, seaweedy smells. Mal despised the beach. Not that the Isle could hardly be considered a </span>
  <em>
    <span>beach</span>
  </em>
  <span> by any stretch of the imagination, but this was the closest thing she knew to a beach anyway, and even the idea of a perfectly well-kept, litter-free Auradon beach made her cringe. It was probably a hatred her mother had advertently or inadvertently instilled in her from a young age due to her feud with Ursula, or maybe it had more to do with Mal’s crippling fear of the ocean and, more so, drowning- though the more she thought about it that too could probably be traced back to Maleficent. Most things could. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal sighed as she ignored the various pieces of litter and broken shells that littered the soggy ground and moved on her hands and knees towards dips in the sand where slimy seaweed and flies were congregating. These little foamy pockets were usually where most glass pieces could be found, so she held her breath and bit the inside of her cheek as she moved the gross debris with her bare hands and continued digging. Eventually, Mal began finding a few shards here and there, and even if she tried to be careful, she still cut herself a few good times on the sharp pieces that hadn’t yet become soft sea glass. Mal assumed her mother probably wouldn’t want it if it was smooth and pretty like that, she didn’t know what her mother needed the glass for but she knew she didn’t generally like pretty things. So Mal sat there on her heels, letting the cold water soak in through the faded knees of her jeans as she dug like a dog in the sand and dropped shards of glass into her metal pail with satisfying </span>
  <em>
    <span>clanks</span>
  </em>
  <span>. She pocketed the few pieces of sea glass she couldn’t put in the bucket, thinking maybe they’d be worth something to someone in town.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal continued searching mindlessly in silence for several minutes, almost like she was on autopilot until suddenly she hissed and sucked air in through her teeth- pulling her hand back from the hole she’d dug quickly. An especially large piece of glass buried at the bottom of the hole had revealed itself by, rather rudely, slicing open her index finger. Mal leaned back and examined her hand, frowning at the sandy, dirty looking wound down the side of her finger. It was like a filleted fish, sliced straight down from the tip of her finger to her knuckle. Blood was quickly running down her forearm but Mal of course didn’t have anything on her to stop it, so carefully without moving too far out of the shadows Mal, reluctantly, crawled towards the ocean and stuck her hand in the water. The foaming waves rushed up to meet her and the water quickly covered her hand, washing away the blood that had trickled down to almost her elbow. The salt made her wince in pain though, and after only a minute she had to pull her arm out and retreated back to safety under the docks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal sucked on her finger briefly as it began to bleed again, examining it closer now that it was clean of sand. It probably could use a few stitches she decided, and would definitely leave a scar. Or, well, it would’ve- if Mal ever seemed to scar. But she didn’t, really. Mal should’ve had minute scars all over her calloused hands from picking glass out of muddy potholes and sidewalk cracks, but instead, her skin was smooth and spotless. It was kind of embarrassing, honestly, because it made her seem as though she wasn’t tough, like she didn’t get hurt. But Mal got </span>
  <em>
    <span>plenty</span>
  </em>
  <span> hurt, that was maybe the only constant she’d ever had in her life. Mal told herself she just had tough skin but unexplainably, all her scars seemingly disappeared the minute a wound was fully healed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, Auradon folks had an explanation for it, she’d read it in a book once that Jay had stolen from a merchant booth in town a year or so ago. Mal, admittedly, wasn’t a fantastic reader, but the title had intrigued her so she’d flipped through it mindlessly in the hideout. All she could recall from the poorly bound book was that it said something about </span>
  <em>
    <span>soulmates, </span>
  </em>
  <span>whatever the hell those were. It sounded strictly like a make-believe Auradon thing she decided straight away- and if there was one thing she was certain of it was that she trusted Auradonians about as far as she could throw them. So sure, her scars inexplicably disappeared. Even the ones that really shouldn’t have, like when Maleficent had cracked her across the back with her big wooden staff on her eighth birthday. She hadn’t been able to move right for </span>
  <em>
    <span>weeks </span>
  </em>
  <span>and it made a big, huge gash right between her two shoulder blades in a jagged line down her back. She remembered the pale look on Jay’s face when she pulled up her shirt and showed it to him, that was maybe one of the only times he’d ever seen her cry. But after a couple of weeks when the wound finally scabbed over and healed up- it was gone without a trace. Sometimes she could feel the hot phantom pain of it, if she skewed her eyes shut tight and concentrated. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was definitely weird, no doubt about that. But there were plenty of weird things about Mal’s life she’d just come to accept, none of which had anything at all to do with some princessy, make-believe crap like a </span>
  <em>
    <span>soulmate. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Maybe that shit could fly in Auradon, but on the Isle, they had bigger things to worry about. Even if Mal thought it was true, which she </span>
  <em>
    <span>didn’t, </span>
  </em>
  <span>but hypothetically if she DID- who could she possibly voice that to? Her </span>
  <em>
    <span>mom</span>
  </em>
  <span>? Yeah right, she’d probably laugh in her face and give Mal a couple more invisible scars for good measure. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal tried to brush off that thought with a slight chill and returned back to the task at hand, settling back at her little dug hole in the sand. Staring at the piece of glass poking up from the sand just enough to be visible at the very bottom of her hole Mal presumed this was the offending piece that’d cut open her index finger just minutes before, judging by the slick red tint it had to one edge. It was a dark brown color, probably from a smashed beer bottle judging by the way it curved underneath the rock on top of it. Mal stuck her hurt hand into her jacket pocket and then used her good hand to fight with the glass shard for several painstaking minutes before it finally gave away and came loose from the ground, her “good” palm now matted with blood. With shaky fingers Mal dumped it in the pail with the rest, searching around some more briefly before deciding that with her bucket half full she’d gathered more than enough for one day. As a last-minute temptation, Mal picked up a few of the more interesting pieces of litter strewn across the sand and placed that too on top of her pail, thinking Jay might be able to do something useful with the shiny bottle caps and plastic beads. Turns out the wharf had been a pretty good idea after all. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As she carefully emerged out from underneath the wooden docks housing her and crept back across the dirt to hide behind a storage container, Mal couldn’t help but pull her hand from out of her pocket and glance back down at her sliced index finger. She’d make Jay do the stitches if he thinks she needs them, she thought, he has a steadier hand than her. She wondered if she had time to stop and swipe some thread before heading home to Maleficent with her glass. Mal traced the wound with her other, uninjured finger- finally recalling exactly what the Auradon book had stated:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not everyone is born with a soulmate. But for the lucky ones who are, a clear indicator that this is so would be disappearing scars from a young age. With soulmates, any scar that would appear on one individual’s body will instead appear on their soulmate’s body- and vice versa. They bear each other’s marks for life, physically connected, and forever bound.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal laughed bitterly. If that’s true, her soulmate must fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>hate </span>
  </em>
  <span>her.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Evie was starting to detest her soulmate, whoever the hell he was. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s like he’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>trying </span>
  </em>
  <span>to make my life more difficult, Othello. Doesn’t he know that I’m trying my hardest to be perfect for him? Then why does my prince keep getting hurt and leaving ME to deal with the </span>
  <em>
    <span>ugly</span>
  </em>
  <span> scars!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Squaaak!</span>
  </em>
  <span> Isle Princess, Isle Princess!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Evie rolled her eyes, swatting playfully at the green bird who was perched on the rotting banister of her cobblestone tower’s balcony. Othello ruffled his feathers and laughed, a throaty, wicked sounding laugh he probably mimicked from the Evil Queen. It gave Evie chills. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You better not let Mom hear you say that, stupid bird. I might be an Isle Princess, but my prince is from Auradon. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>has</span>
  </em>
  <span> to be.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The bird clicked his tongue twice and bobbed his head as though in faux understanding and Evie smiled at him, scratching under his beak with her finger.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Othello was a brilliant creature, she thought. And moreover, he was Evie’s best friend. Her </span>
  <em>
    <span>only </span>
  </em>
  <span>friend, really. She was lucky to have him- she probably would’ve gone crazy long ago if not for the bird’s company. Being locked away in a grimy castle for thirteen long years, with no one to talk to other than your wicked old mother, was a fate Evelyn decided wouldn’t befit even her </span>
  <em>
    <span>worst</span>
  </em>
  <span> enemies. But Othello had been her pet since she was six when Jafar’s bird Iago had gotten an Isle bird pregnant and little chicks were hobbling around the floor of the villain’s junk shop. Most of the hatchlings were eaten or killed no doubt, but Jafar had decided to gift one of the babies to The Evil Queen on behalf of her daughter, and begrudgingly her mother had let her have the bird in an uncharacteristic fit of kindness. Not wanting the baby bird to suffer the same, tragic and unbefitting fate as her though, little Evie tried to dishearteningly set the bright green ball of feathers free that same day, but even though he flew away that night, he returned the next morning to greet her from the window when she woke up. It had decidedly been that way ever since, with Othello appearing at her balcony by his own free will once or twice every day to make conversation with the lonely Isle girl when she needed someone to talk to most. He didn’t always respond but he never judged her when she cried and he always listened. Most people probably would’ve thought Evie was pretty stupid to make friends with a bird, maybe even crazy. It’s not like he could actually understand her most of the time, logically she knew that, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Othello was all she had. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The bird in question purred as Evie mindlessly scratched at his chin, whistling softly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hungry birdie, </span>
  <em>
    <span>woooh!</span>
  </em>
  <span>” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Evie frowned at her pet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry buddy, I don’t have anything to give you today. I’m hungry too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Othello cocked his head and stopped whistling, studying her briefly before butting Evie’s hand away and flapping off. The wind outside picked up and she sighed, wrapping her arms tightly around her middle to shield herself from the cold as she watched her bird fly off and disappear into the tall oak trees outside their gates. She often wondered where her beautiful bird went off to when he disappeared for hours on end each day. As a great green macaw, he was of course a striking green color, with bright red face feathers and a long, vibrant blue tail, so he couldn’t have gone into town- surely he’d have been captured and killed by now if that were the case. Maybe he stayed close to her castle in the surrounding forest so he wouldn’t be too far from his owner, that thought made Evie’s heart warm. Maybe he even had a little bird family of his own. Othello would make a good dad, she thought. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Evelyn.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Evie jumped at the sudden sound of her mother’s stern voice behind her, gripping the cold stone banister in front of her as she turned on her heels to face the Evil Queen. She hadn’t even heard her come in but there she was, standing only three feet away in the arched gap between Evie’s bedroom and her balcony. She was dressed in her long black sleeping gown and had a sour expression on her face, meaning she’d probably just woken up, and Evie’s forced smile faltered as she dropped her arms and tried to stand taller before her mom. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good morning, Mommy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grimhilde squinted her eyes and examined her daughter with a scowl, clearly displeased but by what Evie couldn’t tell. Her hair was brushed and pinned back the way her mom liked it, and she had changed out of her pajamas even before the sun fully rose. Still, her mother was unimpressed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t tell me you were conversing with that stupid, overfed swallow again. What’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>wrong </span>
  </em>
  <span>with you, child?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Evie opened and closed her mouth several times, wringing her hands as she tried to determine whether or not the question was rhetorical, but her mother rolled her eyes and turned away from her before she could quite figure it out. Dejectedly Evie followed the Evil Queen inside, flinching as she slammed close her balcony doors. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s freezing out and here you are letting out all the warm air just so you can make-believe someone cares enough to hear you drabble on.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry, Mommy.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You should always be thinking about qualities your prince will want in you, Evelyn. No one wants a childish ingrate for a wife.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grimhilde grabbed her daughter roughly by the shoulders and led her to the vanity by her bed, pushing her down to sit. Evie bit her tongue as her mother began disorderly ripping out the pins in her hair, letting her blue curls fall messily back into her face. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hand me your brush, I don’t know what’s gotten into you this morning but you’ve not done a well enough job on your hair at all.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Evie silently obeyed, handing her mother her boar-bristle paddle brush from in front of her, even though she knew she did her hair as adequately as she always did. Sometimes her mother just liked to make imperfections up so that she had something to keep herself busy, and Evie was never one to argue. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Make yourself useful and focus on your reflection in the mirror while I brush. When I’m done I want to hear ten imperfections you found because trust me, there are plenty. We’ll focus on those ten for today’s lessons.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Evie didn’t nod her head because she knew her mother had already started brushing and would be mad if she moved, but she did follow her instructions and focus on the reflection of herself staring back at her. This wasn’t a new game the two of them were playing this morning, it was common for Grimhilde to make Evie pick out her flaws when she was too lazy to do so herself. Plus it was somehow more sinister and cruel to make her do the picking and the prodding herself as if her own mother doing so wasn’t bad enough. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Evie tried to focus in on her face and slowly compile a list that would satisfy her mother in her head, but she was having a hard time paying attention to much of anything when the Evil Queen was brushing her hair so truculently. Her mother was always so aggressive when she brushed through her hair, Evie guessed it was because she hated her natural curls and always lamented about how much prettier she would be if it were straight, so this was her futile attempt at accomplishing that. Of course ripping through her hair with her brush only made it an ugly, frizzy mess as Grimhilde loved to call it, but maybe she just enjoyed getting some of her antagonism for her daughter out with the lilting motion. Which was fine by Evie, her mother had plenty of creative ways to physically harm her without leaving a mark, the least harmful of which was probably this. She’d rather have a sore scalp than feel the prick of a sewing needle through her thumb, after all. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not only did her hair getting pulled distract her from the task at hand, but the mirror itself. Evie had plenty of mirrors in her room, fifteen to be exact. She had three variations of oval mirrors by the headboard of her bed, two with wooden frames and one with metal, and she had two different handheld mirrors on her bedside table, one in the drawer and one sitting out on top. She had another few different shaped mirrors hanging on the opposing wall of her room, two circular, four rectangular, and one that was more of a lopsided heart. On the back of her door, there was a long full-sized mirror, and by her balcony door, she had another full-sized mirror propped up in the corner. Lastly was her big vanity mirror, the one she was seated at now. Even though she and her mother called it a vanity, it was really just a grimy old wooden desk they’d attached a mirror to the back of. The white paint was chipping and peeling to reveal the brown underneath, all the drawers had lost their handles so they were impossible to open, and one of the desk’s legs was shorter than the other three by a sizable enough margin that the whole thing would tip terribly if Evie placed anything on its surface. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The distractible issue wasn’t the desk itself though, it was the mirror. Like all of Evie’s fourteen other mirrors, the one at her vanity was terribly cracked. Not a single one of her mirrors was a full, unbroken sheet of glass, but furthermore, the pieces of glass didn’t even fit together- some of them weren’t even the same color or the same type of glass, and there were great gaps between many of the pieces where you could see the empty space of the frame behind them. It was like someone had found a million different shards of glass from a million different sources and half-heartedly formed them all together with glue to make some semblance of a mirror. In fact, that was probably exactly what someone had done. Whether unshattered mirrors simply didn’t ever make it from Auradon over to the Isle, or whether her mother just couldn’t afford to purchase them, was beyond her, but either way, it made looking in the mirror even more difficult than it already was. It was like looking in a funhouse mirror- a hundred tiny, warped, segmented Evie’s staring back at her with the same discontent frown. She wondered who in town her mother bought the mirrors from- who took the time to craft them? Who took the time to find all those little shards of glass for her? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her fingers twitched just thinking about it, and she looked down to examine them where they laid in her lap. A million thin, white, almost ghostly looking scars littered her fingertips and the palms of her hands. She frowned down at them, watching the lines dance as she clenched and unclenched her hands into tight fists. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you been using the cream I bought you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Either Grimhilde could read Evie’s thoughts, or she noticed her daughter staring down at the hands in her lap despite not tilting her head. The former was equally possible in Evie’s opinion. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, Mommy. Every night like you said.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grimhilde tsked, setting down the hairbrush and picking up the metal hairpins. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well you can hardly tell, the scars I can see look as ugly as ever and I’m sure the rest are much the same. Maybe </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>should be our focus today.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Evie sighed but gave her mother a tight smile through the mirror. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That sounds like a wonderful idea, Mommy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Please soulmate, whoever you are, be more careful with me.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What the hell happened to you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal scooched over on their hideout’s rooftop to make room for Jay beside her, the backs of her bare thighs sticking to and scraping against the rough shingles. It was chilly enough that she really shouldn’t have been wearing shorts, but all the rest of her clothes were so dirty they could stand up on their own so she didn’t really have a choice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My dad, that’s what happened.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay plopped down beside her with a heavy </span>
  <em>
    <span>thunk</span>
  </em>
  <span>, swinging his legs over the lip of the roof to sway in sync with Mal’s. It was a sort of </span>
  <em>
    <span>cutesy</span>
  </em>
  <span> looking, approachable sort of thing to do with your legs over a ledge but no one else was around so they let themselves enjoy the comfort. Jay had a big, ugly shiner on his right eye- the kind of shiner that bruises and swells up instantly because you got hit so hard. It was a gross, deep purple color in the center and yellow around the edges, and he could hardly see out of the thing, if at all. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Damn. Can’t even catch a break from the old man on your fourteenth birthday, huh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay just sort of shook his head and ran fingers through his long hair, clearly not in the mood to talk about it. And, of course, Mal respected that, it was kind of their dynamic. So instead of dwelling on it when Jay was already embarrassed to hell and back, she decided to change the subject, setting a careful hand on his knee. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well hey, maybe this’ll cheer you up.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay watched with lukewarm curiosity as Mal unzipped and reached into the black leather backpack at her side and carefully produced a white styrofoam to-go box. Mal gave him a cheeky smile as she opened the box, watching his open eye go wide with wonder as he realized it was a full meal from Ursula’s place- battered fish and french fries and even a wilting lemon wedge. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dig in, birthday boy.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay shook his head, pushing back the extended meal. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No Mal c’mon I can’t eat that, are you crazy? Do you know how much that’s worth?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal rolled her eyes, punching him in the arm. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course I know how much it’s worth idiot, I almost lost an arm stealing it. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Literally.</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal carefully pulled up the sleeve of her leather jacket to show Jay the long, straggling cut on her forearm from that afternoon's endeavor. Jay furrowed his brows and scoffed, but the gleam of a smile wasn’t lost on Mal even as he looked away from her and down at his swinging feet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let me guess, Harry?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal set the container of food in Jay’s lap, who held onto it closely. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Doesn’t matter, now eat your gift already or I’ll eat it for you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay looked at the food for a minute in silence, almost like he was trying to dedicate the way it looked untouched to memory. It wasn’t every day you got to admire a meal like that from afar, much less consume it yourself. It really was a very nice gift and Jay knew it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let’s share it.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal was going to argue with him, but he was already pulling his greasy fish in half with his fingers before she could get the words out. Wordlessly she took her share of the food, but her appreciation was palpable. That’s how Mal and Jay had always been, they could have whole conversations between each other without ever having to utter a word. Which was great, because the way they were stuffing their faces now they couldn’t have talked even if they wanted to. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The two sat like that for a few minutes, trying desperately to savor the stolen food when all they wanted to do was eat it ravenously. Despite their best efforts, both halves of the fish were gone within minutes, and Mal groaned in content before they both moved onto the fries. They were cold as ice and soggy from sitting under the fish, but they were still </span>
  <em>
    <span>incredible </span>
  </em>
  <span>in comparison to anything else she’d eaten. While Maleficent ruled more territory than Ursula, Ursula ruled the sea, and that meant she ruled the food. Mal and Jay always went hungry, it was just the way things were. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sleeping at the hideout tonight, I can’t imagine Jafar wants to see me again tonight. Does your forearm need stitching?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal chewed her fry thoughtfully, trying to slow herself as she could tell the meal would soon end and the food was dwindling. She gently rubbed her arm through her coat, trying to feel how deep the wound was without looking away from the horizon. She wouldn’t admit it out loud, but it was a pretty sunset. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think so, thanks though. I’ll probably stay and hang with you awhile anyway before heading home.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal watched Jay nod his head from her peripheral and return to the food between them, but she could tell there was something on his mind. She was about to ask him what the deal was when he piped up again, probably sensing her question lingering in the air. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ya know how you have that </span>
  <em>
    <span>thing</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal scowled at him, raising an eyebrow. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What </span>
  <em>
    <span>thing?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest as if it were the most obvious thing in the entire world and Mal was an idiot for being confused. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The thing where your scars disappear?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal stopped swaying her feet and pulled them up to her chest, suddenly feeling very vulnerable. She’d told Jay about the thing with her scars years ago, but they’d never really talked about it outside of a few offhand jokes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, and? What about it.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal’s voice was hard and Jay shrunk back, grabbing another fry. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, do you believe that crap about it being a...</span>
  <em>
    <span>soulmate</span>
  </em>
  <span> thing?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal shot him a stern look but Jay didn’t back down, he just stared back at her with wide brown eyes. Mal wanted to hit him and yell at him, to call him stupid for even saying something like that, but one look at his face softened her heart. He was dead serious and genuinely curious. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I...I don’t know.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay sighed, clearly dissatisfied with the answer. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s what my dad and I got in a fight over, </span>
  <em>
    <span>soulmates</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He socked me ‘cause I think soulmates are real. I don’t even know why I got so angry and opened my big fat mouth and said anything about it anyway, it’s not like I have a soulmate of my own- my scars are plenty proof of that, but he was talking crap about the whole thing and saying it was all phony Auradon crap and I don’t know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay tentatively touched his swollen eye, studying Mal’s face as he spoke. She was trying ridiculously hard to keep it straight, but in actuality, her heart was hammering in her chest like the buzz of a hundred wasps. She’d </span>
  <em>
    <span>never </span>
  </em>
  <span>heard another person on the Isle say they believed in soulmates. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I guess I just got defensive thinking about you. But then I realized that, technically, I don’t even know where you stand on the whole thing, so maybe I was getting mad for nothing. But you think it’s true, right? I mean how else do you explain your scars- or, well, lack thereof?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal fidgeted uncomfortably, looking down at her hands. They were rough with callouses on her palms and raw and cracked around her knuckles from dry skin, but they were scar-free. Even her little wrinkled fingertips were spotless, the skin smooth and clear in an almost unsettling way. It sent chills down her spine. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It doesn’t matter.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure it does.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal groaned exasperatedly, rubbing her temples. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>want </span>
  </em>
  <span>to fall in love with anyone, Jay. I don’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>need </span>
  </em>
  <span>someone like that when you and I BOTH know love is nothing but weakness. And besides, I doubt I’m even </span>
  <em>
    <span>capable </span>
  </em>
  <span>of it.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The two teens went quiet, shivering as the sun disappeared over the horizon. When Jay spoke again he did so very softly, and his mouth was full of food so his voice was muffled. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well I think, if there was even a </span>
  <em>
    <span>chance </span>
  </em>
  <span>that I had a soulmate, I’d believe. Don’t repeat this to anyone else, but I’d </span>
  <em>
    <span>kill</span>
  </em>
  <span> for something like that to keep me going on my hardest days. I think you’re an awfully lucky idiot, Mal.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal's face grew red and she stood up with a start.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If I’ve got a soulmate I’m gonna need proof. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Real </span>
  </em>
  <span>proof.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal stood so close to the edge of the roof that even just a small gust of wind would’ve sent her toppling over the edge, the toes of her boots hovering over the lip of the building. With a fistful of fries squeezed tightly in her hands Mal raised her arms and tilted her face up to the sky, skewing her eyes shut and shouting out into the dusk. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“HEY STUPID, MAGIC UNIVERSE! I DON’T BELIEVE YOU!! I’M CALLING YOUR BLUFF! IF I’VE REALLY GOT A SOULMATE, THEN GIVE ME A SIGN!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay couldn’t help but start laughing, and by the end of her shouting, Mal was giggling too, amused by the way her voice echoed back at her against the surrounding buildings. Jay was laying on his back, his arms wrapped around his stomach as he laughed so hard he almost choked on his food. That only made Mal laugh harder. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Y-you are a LUNATIC, ya know that Mal Bertha?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal moved to help him up from the ground when suddenly a flash of color from the corner of her eye caught her attention. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Squaaak!! </span>
  </em>
  <span>Isle princess!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What the hell?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal stumbled back and fell on her butt beside Jay as a huge, bright green bird swooped above her head and flew in circles around them, making weird throaty noises. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did that bird just call you a princess? Hey! Maybe </span>
  <em>
    <span>he’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> your soulmate, Mal!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal punched Jay in the arm as he fell back and started laughing again, but she didn’t say anything. She was totally enamored by the bird flapping above their heads. He was unlike any other ugly bird she’d seen on the Isle, things didn’t usually get that bright here. The parrot above them let out an ear-piercing shriek and both teens jumped, covering their ears. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Click, click!</span>
  </em>
  <span> Uh oh! Help! Uh oh!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal skewed her face up at the stupid bird, distracted enough by his speech and almost hypnotizing color pallet that she wasn’t nearly quick enough to stop him from swooping down and snatching several fries from the remaining few in her and Jay’s container. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“HEY!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Both she and Jay yelled at the same time, standing up from the roof together. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Hahahaha!</span>
  </em>
  <span> Come here pretty bird! </span>
  <em>
    <span>Squaak!</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal watched in astonishment as the rat with wings seemingly mocked her and then began flying off with her twice stolen food. Without a second thought Mal began chasing after him, the adjacent buildings close enough to their hideout that she could simply jump from roof to roof without stopping to climb to the ground. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mal-! Mal stop! C’mon it’s just a couple fries!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal huffed as she reached the last building, pausing only briefly to find the fire escape so she could safely jump to the ground and follow the bird into the forest. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, </span>
  <em>
    <span>our </span>
  </em>
  <span>fries!!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay still looked torn and mildly inconvenienced but followed Mal nonetheless, because he always did. While she </span>
  <em>
    <span>was </span>
  </em>
  <span>upset over the last of their fries getting swiped, she probably would have been more inclined to let it go if her own words weren’t echoing through her head. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>If I’ve REALLY got a soulmate, then give me a sign!”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>If a neon talking bird didn’t classify as a sign, then she didn’t know what would.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Evie clutched her head in her hands and just sobbed- a long, drawn-out, anguish filled scream escaping her mouth because no one was there to hear her and reprimand her for it. It wasn’t just the pain, though her head </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> pounding, it was the shock she simply couldn’t overcome that had her shaking all over and her emotions shot. Her mother had </span>
  <em>
    <span>never </span>
  </em>
  <span>struck her like that before. She had hurt her plenty of times, sure, but never had she exploded like that. Her eyes had tripled in size and shown red like a demon’s, and her long nails had turned to claws as they gripped her hair and smashed her head into the full-sized mirror at the back of her door. And then she’d just stood over her crumpled body, almost like even she was surprised by her actions before leaving the room with a flourish of her cape. Evie thought it funny that, even in her anger induced, delirious state, her mother had at least had the forethought to aim for her daughter’s head- that way most of the damage wouldn’t be visible under her hair. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Evie didn’t know how long she’d been on the floor for but she still couldn’t sit up, she could hardly even keep her eyes open. Had she passed out? The blood that was matting the palms of her hands and her hair and dripping down her face was warm enough that if she did she couldn’t have been out for very long. With tentative, shaking fingers Evie tried to feel her head for the source of all the bleeding, but her fingertips were too numb to find it. She’d obviously cut her head open on the shattered mirror, but was there glass lodged in her scalp? She tried to remember if there was- was that something she was meant to pull out or keep put to minimize the bleeding? Her head was reeling and swimming that she couldn’t string together a coherent thought as hard as she tried. She knew she had to get up and stop the bleeding- she had to apply pressure and stitch herself up- but her body was so </span>
  <em>
    <span>heavy. </span>
  </em>
  <span>It was like all her arms and legs had been filled up with bags of sand. She was going to die if she didn’t do something. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I’m going to die.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Trying to focus on one little thing at a time, Evie started by trying to open her eyes. It took several minutes, but she finally got them open- not that she could see much because her eyes were not only blurred over with tears, but her bedroom was shrouded in mostly darkness. Evil Queen must’ve blown out the candle on her bedside table before leaving the room, how kind. After she blinked several times to finish getting rid of most of her tears, Evie could make out </span>
  <em>
    <span>some </span>
  </em>
  <span>of the shapes in her room because the sun hadn’t entirely set yet. The napalm orange glow from the apparent sunset out on her balcony helped illuminate drawn out shadows across Evie’s walls, and she tried to focus on those streaks of light to ground her conscious self. Carefully when she felt ready, Evie painstakingly peeled her hands away from her head, hissing in pain and grimacing in disgust at the thick, dark blood coating her fingers. She messily wiped her hands on the front of her nightdress before placing them on either side of herself in preparation for trying to sit up- but in doing so she realized she was surrounded by small shards of glass littering her stone floors. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shakily Evie brushed the glass aside to make space for her hands, trying to find the strength within herself to sit up from the floor. What really helped her summon the necessary energy was the sound of sudden wings flapping into her bedroom, followed by the sound of something large and heavy crashing onto her balcony. With a jolt Evie sat up on her hands, instantly getting a head rush which made her push one of her palms back to her aching forehead. Through blurry crossed eyes Evie could make out Othello perched on her balcony with wildly ruffled feathers, a fist-sized rock under him. Was someone throwing </span>
  <em>
    <span>rocks </span>
  </em>
  <span>at her bird??</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As if on cue another rock flew up by Othello, missing him by a large margin and instead rolling into her bedroom and </span>
  <em>
    <span>clunking </span>
  </em>
  <span>against her bureau. The bird ground his beak and shrieked, bobbing his head up and down as he looked back and forth between Evie on the floor and whatever was using him as target practice outside the tower walls. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“C-come ‘ere, pretty bird.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Evie tried to steady her voice so as to not scare her pet, but she didn’t sound at all like herself and she was sure even Othello could tell as much. She also hadn’t realized she was still audibly crying, but she was, because the words sputtered out of her throat like a whine. Sniffling, she was about to beckon for him again when she heard </span>
  <em>
    <span>voices</span>
  </em>
  <span> outside- distinctly two voices. She didn’t think she recognized them at all, though she really couldn’t make them out well, much less understand what they were saying. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Wooooh!</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Othello let out a long, sharp whistle that made Evie glower, her ears ringing. She was gonna lay back down if she didn’t do something. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Uh oh! </span>
  <em>
    <span>Click click, </span>
  </em>
  <span>help! </span>
  <em>
    <span>Woooooh! </span>
  </em>
  <span>Heeelp!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Evie looked up in shock as Othello began crying out for help, almost like he could tell she was hurt. Had he gone and led people to her tower after he saw Mom hit her? It sounded impossible but here she was, fairly certain she could hear the characteristic scraping sounds of someone scaling the cobblestoned sides of her tower between the ringing in her ears. Suddenly her heart began to censure in her chest- was a stranger really about to emerge in her room and see her so vulnerable? If they were trouble she couldn’t defend herself against them, she couldn’t even stand up. What if they were going to rob her? To kidnap her? She didn’t know much of the world outside her stone prison but she knew enough to know it was wretched. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Othello continued to screech and desperately Evie looked around for something, </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything, </span>
  </em>
  <span>to defend herself with. She couldn’t take much more tonight if it was someone else who wanted to join in the fun and give her hell maybe she’d just lie there and take it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m coming up!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finally, Evie caught enough of the person’s voice to make out what they were saying, probably because they were now right beneath the banister of her balcony. It was a </span>
  <em>
    <span>girl? </span>
  </em>
  <span>And by the sounds of it, a girl near her age. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Move you dumb bird.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Evie peeled her eyes back open, not having noticed they’d once again closed, in time to watch Othello jump up with a start as a pale hand poked up and grasped the banister where he’d been sitting. As the intruder pulled herself up and tumbled over the railing to collapse in a heaving heap on Evie’s balcony, she immediately recognized the girl. Not because she’d ever actually seen her, because she hadn’t, but because even in the dark room it was impossible to miss her bright purple head of hair. This was </span>
  <em>
    <span>Maleficent’s </span>
  </em>
  <span>daughter. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Holy </span>
  <em>
    <span>shit.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Evie was so out of it- thinking about Maleficent’s scary daughter being in her room, thinking about the crashing and pulling of waves in her own battered brain, thinking about how much she loved her pet bird- that she didn’t even notice Mal was sitting up on her hands and knees and staring at her with a look of horror until she spoke. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not gonna lie- you don’t look too hot, Princess.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Evie tried to force an awkward smile. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Trust me, I don’t feel so hot either.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal didn’t smile back. She didn’t know what she expected to greet her in the tallest tower of The Castle Across The Way, but it </span>
  <em>
    <span>certainly </span>
  </em>
  <span>wasn’t this. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you- can I help you?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Evie thought over the question as her head lolled to one side. Her answer, in ninety-percent of situations, would have been a resounding no. Firstly, she didn’t know this girl, but what she </span>
  <em>
    <span>did </span>
  </em>
  <span>know of her didn’t make for a very compelling argument as to her trustworthiness. Furthermore, she looked absolutely horrifying. Not in an ugly sort of way, in fact, though she wouldn’t admit it outwardly, she thought Maleficent’s daughter was quite pretty- her pale skin, her purple arched eyebrows, her full lips, not to mention those eyes...it wasn’t that she was unattractive, it was that she was intimidating as all hell. She was clad in a purple leather jacket with a black, moth-eaten t-shirt underneath. Her shorts were clearly cut-off black jeans, and her boots were huge and clunky. To finish the look she had a faded purple flannel tied around her waist, a black choker around her neck that was probably just a stolen black shoelace, and a hundred chunky, spikey, heavy bracelets and rings. She could have kicked Evie’s ass, to put it lightly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And yet, she found herself saying </span>
  <em>
    <span>yes </span>
  </em>
  <span>with little to no hesitation at all. </span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Jay, I need you to go get me some tweezers from the bathroom. We need to pick the glass out before we can apply pressure.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal set Evie, whose name she’d learned during their round of twenty questions on the way back to the hideout in a desperate attempt of keeping her conscious, down on the couch of their hideout. She was awake but barely, so they had to work quickly. Jay nodded in affirmation though and disappeared briefly around the corner, returning with not only the tweezers but all the other necessary medical equipment he could think to grab. Mal and Jay were always sure to keep their hideout well stocked with supplies just in case of an emergency. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I like your, um….your h-house.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal smiled tremorously at Evie, sitting behind her with her legs criss-cross so she could prop Evie’s head up in her lap. She would’ve blushed given their close proximity if not for the circumstances. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks. Jay and I found this place, it’s our hideout.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Evie’s eyes fluttered and she tried to smile back up at Mal, but it came out lopsided and awkward. Her voice was shaky and slurred like she was drunk even though she was totally sober. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A hideout, huh? I n-need one of um...one of those.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal bit the inside of her cheek. There was so little she knew about this girl, and yet she felt like she knew everything- like they’d known each other forever. Maybe even longer. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was desperate to ask Evie a million little questions plaguing her mind. Who hurt her? What was her pet bird’s name? Did she know Mal collected every tiny piece of glass currently ingrained in her head?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you um, can you wash off my hands? They’re...sticky…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Evie held up her hands and showed Mal her blood-covered palms in confusion, almost like her shaken mind couldn’t remember how they’d gotten that way. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, of course.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Carefully Mal grabbed one of Evie’s hands in hers, biting her cheek harder to try and hopelessly focus on the ever-pressing task at hand. Jay handed her a dishrag and gestured to the bucket he’d placed at the side of the couch with lukewarm, soapy water in it. She gave him a tight, appreciative smile as she reached down and dipped the rag in the water, wringing it out slightly before using it to carefully wipe Evie’s hands in case there was any hidden glass in her skin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Evie was almost about to slip back into darkness from the soothing, repetitive motion of Mal’s tender wiping when a gasp jolted her awake again. She looked up at Mal’s face confusedly, watching as she stared enamored at her hand. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...What’s wrong?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal looked down at Evie for a moment too long before finally shaking her head unconvincingly, clearly still rattled. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing it’s just...your fingers.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Evie studied the fingers in question, now clear of any blood from her head. She grimaced at them, only noticing the numerous puffy white and pink scars that wrapped around the curved tips of her fingers- the most noticeable of which a huge scar down the whole of her index. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know, they’re ugly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal paused for a long minute before gently taking Evie’s other hand to clean it too. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think so at all. It’s...unique. What are they from?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Evie huffed, balling up her free fist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s the silly part, I don’t even know.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mal had to hide her small smile. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>She knew. </span>
  </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I hope you enjoyed this oneshot, because I’m actually super pleased with the way it turned out- especially since it’s just three different oneshot ideas of mine squished into one! 😹💗 Evie’s pet bird Othello is from the books btw in case you were wondering, I knew I wanted to include him because I’ve never really seen him in any other fic and I think it’s a really cute idea. Please let me know your thoughts on the soulmate AU and the head canon of Mal finding the glass that’s used to make Evie’s mirrors lol, it was just an angsty thought I couldn’t get out of my head till I wrote it down. Please leave a comment or you enjoyed- love you guys!! xx</p></blockquote></div></div>
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